Buckskin Gulch

In a burst of prolific writing, we’re treating you to two posts in one day. We have the luxury of being trapped in Milford, UT, waiting out a dust storm that has closed down the roads. Based on our experience here, Milford consists mainly of greasy burgers, free wi-fi, and zero visibility. This is the perfect combination of factors to help us chronicle our expedition through Buckskin Gulch on the Utah/Arizona border.

The trip is a 22-mile jaunt through a narrow slot canyon. Based on our research, we knew to anticipate sheer and soaring cliffs closing in from both sides for the bulk of the trip. The canyon delivered this in spades. The biggest risk in the slot comes from flash floods, which send torrents of water from which there is no escape. Thankfully, despite some sprinkles and few thunderous sounds that had our knees knocking, we didn’t run into any flooding. See the pic below – the log jammed in the canyon above Carolyn gives you a sense of how high the water gets during flood stage.






















The first day was a fairly grueling 13-mile hike to a spot high enough off the river bed to camp without fear of washout. On top of typical backpacking challenges like rocky ground and heavy packs, there were numerous places where we had to remove our packs to climb over boulders or because the canyon was too tight to fit through unless you turned sideways. One of our favorite challenges was a ~15 foot slick rock face that we had to essentially rappel down, after lowering our packs. Our least favorite challenge were the numerous cesspools filled with stanky, opaque water left from the last flash flood (and the occasional floating dead mouse to amp up the gag factor). Turn your laptop or monitor 90 degrees to the right to enjoy the cesspool video footage below.







We didn’t see anyone in the canyon all day and the solitude was overwhelming.
This is a wilderness area and completely devoid of any human “improvement.” It is a humbling experience to be faced by nature without all the standard conveniences of modern life – the canyon made us feel very small, which is a great reminder every now and again.



After a restless night, owing to the echoing cacophony of bird banter, we hiked 9 miles out of the canyon. The real adventure of the day came in trying to find a ride back to our car, which was ~15 miles away by horrific dirt road. This is where Ben’s unwillingness to pay $75 for a shuttle, and complete willingness to try to talk anyone into anything, were put to the test. After a couple hours of melting in the sun, Carolyn used her beguiling charms to talk the guy driving the tanker truck that was pumping out the porta-pots into driving Ben to the car. Talk about travelling in style…



After our Buckskin adventure, we went to Zion National Park, which we’ve both historically considered a favorite. Sadly, the park was completely overrun by the showered masses. We pounded out a hike up Angel’s Landing, which is one of Ben’s top hikes of all time. The route takes you along a fin of rock with vertical cliffs on either side to a flat promontory. Much of the trail is edged by chains, where there are no handholds. Despite the hordes of fellow trekkers, the beauty of the trail was undiminished. We also took a quick hike upstream into the Narrows (and yes, Gina, we thought we were SO cool). With those hikes under our belt, we made a mad dash from Zion in search of solitude….and found just that trapped in a diner in Milford, UT.

Canyon Country

Greetings from our office (which happens to double as a Laundromat) in St. George, Utah. After many miles and lots of grime, it was time for a shower, clean clothes, and some electricity to feed our voracious devices. One of this week’s findings is that Ben’s tolerance for not showering is greater than Carolyn’s tolerance for Ben not showering. Fancy that.

After a great bluegrass show from Oakhurst in Denver with Noonan, Gina, Brian “T-Baggins” Taylor, and his girlfriend Bizz, we again set our sights west and headed towards Gunnison, CO. Our grandiose driving plans were quickly cut short when we fell head over heels for a National Forest campsite tucked in the mountains under towering pines near Independence Pass. It called to us and our driving ambitions were dashed for the day, so we took a nice hike to the Continental Divide and were serenaded to sleep by a roaring stream next to our site. We love that this trip allows us to call audibles at will, so we can come and go from each place as we please. It is a rarity in the typically compressed American vacation.


















The next day, we made it to Gunnison and camped near the river at the bottom of the Black Canyon in the national park of the same name. The canyon was spectacular, but we were nagged by cloudy skies and intermittent rain. The following morning, the sun asserted itself and we got to see the canyon in its glory. Sadly, like much of what we’ll see, the photos don’t do it justice. We prefer to blame that on the camera, rather than user incompetence. If you're looking for a challenge, try to find Ben in the picture below on the left. After leaving the park, we headed to Telluride and Ouray, CO, the latter of which rewarded us with a soak in some hot springs (good call, Elizabeth!). This area was stunning, with jagged snow-covered peaks in all directions.























From here, we entered the vast expanses of arid rock that make up Southern Utah. The seemingly infinite expanses of parched rock which have been sculpted through the eons by unseen water are quite a juxtaposition to behold. Half of the passengers in our car were delighted by this barren scenery and the other half pined for pines (and other flora), but all parties shall remain nameless in this matter. We did a few short hikes at Natural Bridges National Monument and Capital Reef National Park on our way to Bryce Canyon National Park.



















At Bryce we explored the fanciful hoodoos eroded from the soft sandstone. We also met some fine German lads and got to dazzle them with our cobweb-coated high school Deutsch vocabularies. The number of Europeans we’ve met in the parks is incredible - in places, they outnumber the Americans. Regardless of nationality, we are thrilled by the endless stream of friendly and interesting people we’ve met. We are not sure if it’s self selection by park lovers (i.e. all campers are cool), the luck of catching people on vacation (i.e. people are cool when they’re on vacation), the change in our viewpoint since we’re on vacation ourselves (i.e. people are always cool, but we’ve been too busy to notice), or something else entirely…..but we like it.



















Tune in to our next post for the high and lowlights of our backpacking expedition into the Buckskin Gulch slot canyon!

P.S. Sharp-eyed blog consumers will notice that our McDonald’s count is slowly creeping upward. We’re actually way behind forecast and we attribute this to the fact that we’ve rarely travelled on interstate highways thus far. The purpose of the count is to appall our readers with the number of fast food joints littering our highways and to give us something else to look for on long, lonely drives. One of our goals this summer is to avoid eating at any chain restaurants. So far this hasn’t been hard and we’ve been rewarded with some pretty eclectic pit stops. Just doing our part to keep it real…

Our First Week

Greetings from Denver! We are fortunate to have friends to drop in on across the country, and the Noonans are no exception. We are enjoying an “administrative day” by doing some laundry and updating our blog at Casa de Noonan. It has been an incredible trip already and we can’t believe it has only been six days! This is just the beginning, but we feel like we’ve already seen and done a lot.

After leaving the friendly confines of the Hsia House (thanks Marcus and Jocelyn!), we barreled northwest through Texas and spent three nights between Caprock Canyons and Palo Duro TX State Parks. Both delivered some scenic hikes, horned toad sightings and scorching, dry weather. Our biggest treat was sleeping with the rain fly off the tent and lavishing ourselves with the cool desert breeze at night. From Palo Duro, we set our sights westward and made for New Mexico. After ~700 miles and a quick stop at the Cadillac Ranch, we finally made it out of Texas.

We had never been to Northern New Mexico and took some time to explore Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Our interest in cities is generally less powerful than the pull of wide open spaces, so it wasn’t long before we turned north and picked our way through the towering cliffs and the beginnings of pine forests. We camped at the Echo Amphitheater in the Carson National Forest. It felt great to leave the high plains behind and feel enough chill in the air to build a roaring campfire.

From New Mexico, we headed north to Colorado and took a soak in the natural hot springs in Pagosa Springs. Then it was on to Mesa Verde National Park to explore some Anasazi ruins. We toured the impressive Cliff Palace and Balcony House cliff dwellings, built nearly 800 years ago. Rain chased us to Durango, where we were lucky enough to get a roof over our heads (thanks Anne!).

The next day, we rolled to Great Sand Dunes National Park, before again being driven onward by rain. We paid a visit to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs and then made it to Denver in time to have a Leinenkugel’s nightcap with Noonan and Gina. This morning we woke to little Noonans jumping on the bed (and us). We followed that with a lung-searing run through Red Rocks amphitheater and now we’re relaxing in anticipation of the Oakhurst concert tonight.

It is probably premature to make this call, but we love being on the road. We met a guy at Mesa Verde who has been traveling for 10 years straight. He left on a trip like ours and has been everywhere at some point and nowhere permanently ever since. We don’t aspire to anything that audacious, but it is inspiring to see people following their hearts even when it doesn’t fit society’s norms. That’s all for this week – much more to come as we again turn west and head towards the hoodoos of Southern Utah!

P.S. Sorry Mom. Despite your request that we pick up any hitchhikers we come across, we’re a bit tight on space and won’t be able to accommodate any other unshowered souls at this juncture.